Multiconstruct

Tuesday of last week I awoke on one of the crappiest mattresses i’ve had the displeasure of resting my weary head upon with a bit of a crick in my neck. It was a little sore and I rubbed on it some. The next day more of the same and the next as well, perhaps a touch worse so I really made sure to stretch it good. After my road trip I expected it to pass but it got sorer and sorer and not so easy to stretch all the way. Then it was just hurting all the time and got to where i couldn’t sleep good. I made an appointment with Cori Flaker, masseuse of renown and native plant buddy. After 2 sleepless nights it was really starting to get to me. It was hard to work being sore all the time. The massage helped a bit but it also showed i couldn’t lay flat on my back without a lot of pain so i decided to make a doctors appointment. I couldn’t remember how to spell my doctors name because i haven’t been seen in a year and a half or remember the name of the clinic. I drove there on my lunch hour and it looked closed down. I got on my good old insurance company web site (i have a POS plan, doesn’t give me a lot of faith in their marketing, pos?) and found a provider and got in with the first available. I saw her this morning and what a great doc. Young, earnest, and thorough. So my symptoms today was some pain, but a lot of weakness and couldn’t lift my right arm above my shoulder. Tingling down to the top joint of my right hand. So it looks like its a pinched nerve in the C-6 vertebrae. Its got a spur or its degenerated and its squeezing the nerve. It could also be a torn rotator cup but the tingling belies this. The insurance company mandated approach is x-ray, pain pills (tramadol which is working nicely thank you), physical therapy (3X per week for 8 weeks if i want it and the insurance company will pay[usually the companies will pay for 2], see ya in 4 weeks. I hadn’t expected much better. My talking point has been that i have been trying to be grateful. It has taught me a bit of what people with chronic pain go through, as so many of my clients and friends have to deal with. I have been grateful for my long string of good health and all of the other blessings i have in my life. Its helped me not be mad or sad. Tonight I had my batterer’s group though and i had to hold my arm up to write on the white board. It has made me very sad and a little afraid about the future. It could clear up in a little time and be like it never happened. It could be a new reality in which there is nothing that can be done that will assuredly make it better. I suspect the former but feel i should steel myself for either. Its also dawned on me that its been getting worse every day. Its worse now than it was this morning. I have a new respect for my peeps who struggle with these things. I found sleeping on the futon was more comfortable, i might try laying down and seeing how things look in the morning. I hope i am making a big deal out of nothing and life will go on as it has. I strive to hope that the world will be as it is and not how i wish it to be but i am not there yet.

“Fear is the mind killer, the little death that brings total oblivion. I will face my fear. I will allow it to pass over me and through me. And where it has passed I will turn my mind’s eye, and there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” Frank Herbert